Creative agency Chemistry and its client The Irish Examiner struck a chord with rugby fans around the world this week with a fitting and poignant tribute to the late All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu who passed away on Wednesday.
Chemistry provided the creative for the front page tribute in the paper, a thoughtful graphic showing a leaf being shed from the iconic All Blacks’ silver fern. Since then the image has been shared throughout the world on various social media platforms. On the Facebook of Super Rugby, the image received over 150,000 likes and was shared over 79,000 times. It has also trended on social media in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and France and was picked up by mainstream media channels in these countries.
The New Zealand Herald described the image as “a moving tribute” to Lomu, while French site ‘Ministry of Rugby’ featured the Irish Examiner front page in an article entitled “L’hommage de la presse internationale à Jonah Lomu avec la très belle Une de l’Irish Examiner.”
Irish Examiner editor Tim Vaughan said everyone at the newspaper was delighted with the phenomenal reaction to the image.
“Full credit here to the creative geniuses at our advertising agency, Chemistry, who devised the concept. Given the newspaper’s sporting heritage, not least in rugby, we wanted to mark Jonah Lomu’s tragic passing in a significant way. I was looking for a front page image that would do justice to such an iconic figure. Chemistry’s concept answered the need perfectly: respectful, sincere, poignant and creatively outstanding,” says Tim Vaughan, editor of The Irish Examiner.
